Wesley Schultz Interview and Feature in META

A few months back, I had the opportunity to contribute a feature to META Magazine about the lead singer of The Lumineers, Wesley Schultz. The original plan was for me to fly to New York and meet up with Wesley in the Catskills just north of New York City (where he was then staying with his wife and son) and a video team led by JP Kathoefer of Johnnypuetz Productions, and photographer Ryan Handt. But with all the travel difficulties resulting from COVID-19, we opted to do a phone interview instead.

After countless hours of research about Wesley Schultz and The Lumineers, I put together what I thought were 15 unique questions to ask during the interview. My goal was to be well prepared with questions if I needed something to fall back on or move the conversation along. With an app downloaded on my phone to record the interview, I nervously received the call from Wesley's management team, we were introduced, and the interview began.

Nearly two hours later, I hung up from the call with the realization that Wesley Schultz is one nice guy. We seemed to connect right away. The conversation felt effortless as we each recounted stories of our youth involving motorcycles, what it was like for Wesley growing up in New Jersey near the Catskills, and more recently, how riding a motorcycle has influenced his songwriting process. Our conversation took a natural course, and I only used a few of the questions I had put together.

I can't say enough about how friendly and genuine Wesley was during the interview. I enjoyed every minute of our conversation and ended the call feeling like I'd made a new friend. After nearly eight hours of transcribing, the result was over 20,000 words to start my story. With so much to draw from, the most challenging part was separating the good stuff from the really good stuff.

Although the feature probably could have been twice as long, I'm proud of the final result that appears in Issue 020 of META. I can't thank Wesley Schultz and his management team enough for allowing me to conduct the interview. A big thank you also goes out to Andrew Campo and Ben Giese of META Magazine for allowing me to write this feature. It was indeed a bucket list experience.

Look for a web version of my Wesley Schultz feature coming soon over at readmeta.com, where you can also order up a copy of Issue 020 or purchase an annual subscription.

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